Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward Watches Are Back for Charity!

Aksys Games to Donate Proceeds from Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward Watches to American Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts

Torrance, CA November 14, 2012 – The recent landfall of Hurricane Sandy left much of the eastern seaboard devastated. Thousands of people have been driven out of destroyed homes, and many are still without electricity, food, water, or other necessities. Help is needed, and as such we at Aksys Games would like to announce that we will be selling a limited number of VLR watches in our new web store, and donating all proceeds from the sale of said watches to the American Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts fund.

Akibo Shieh, CEO of Aksys Games explains, “I’ve always felt that no matter what, it’s important to give back to the community wherever we can, especially during times such as these. Whether it’s an individual or a small company like us, if we all work together we can make a difference. We hope that our friends on the East Coast recover as quickly as possible.”

It is our sincerest hope that relief efforts reach and aid those affected by this disaster quickly.

For more information about the Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward watch, please visit Aksys Games’ new web store at store.aksysgames.com.

25 Comments

Wow, what a wonderful idea! I missed out on the watch as a preorder, so this is rather exciting. It’s great to know the money spent will be going to those in need rather than to some random seller on ebay.

Had I realized that these were on sale yesterday, I would have bought two…Sad day! Please, please, please, please make more available? My fiance and I have played both 999 and Zero’s Escape, and I know he would adore one of the watches for Christmas.

Of all products in their store, it HAD to be the damn watch that Aksys picked to sell in support of Hurricane Sandy victims. I appreciate the gesture of charitable help. But now that Aksys has made these available for sale, there’s NO question that they could have reserved these for people who pre-ordered the game on Amazon and got shafted. I wonder just how many of these watches were available for purchase. Keep up that shady practice, Aksys!!!

bujinkanrn, I’m not with Aksys so I can’t say for sure, but I highly doubt this set of watches was pulled out of a box of “leftovers” from the preorder phase. It seems more likely that they produced more watches in response to Hurricane Sandy.

Really great thing you guys did here, I can’t wait to see how much was raised for the relief fund.

@zephyrthelight
You seem to have missed the point. Even if Aksys had the capability of producing more watches, they had the capability of taking care of the people who were promised a watch with their pre-orders.

Or, you know, they could have decided to tae a hit here and get more made so they can help in the relief efforts. Aksys doesn’t get a cent from these sales, so why are you trying to find malicious intent or hunting for a reason to whine? they’re doing something good that they didn’t have to do.

They already produced 3 or 4 batches of the watches. The batch before this one kept coming in and out of stock on amazon for several days. Even though aksys said they were extremely limited, but decided to KEEP MAKING MORE(when they didnt have to do diddly squat) because people like you kept bitching about it.

No matter how many they make, some idiot will always complain “wahh wahh I didnt get my plastic watch wahh wahh aksys is the devil”

@bujinkanrn
Brah you’ve gone on almost every VLR page here to moan and whine about this Watch. Yes what happened sucked but it was nearly a month ago and at this point you’re just making an ass of yourself. Aksys has put forth every effort to give the Watches to the people who wanted them and then some. They’ve even offered to send them out to the people who didn’t cancel their amazon pre-orders like they originally promised they would do. If you still don’t have one you only have yourself to blame so man up and move on.

@Texanon
Since when did Aksys offer to send them out to people who didn’t cancel their Amazon pre-orders? Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the plastic watch. It’s the principle of the situation. Aksys straight-up told people who had pre-ordered not to worry, that they would be taken care of. Amazon faltered somewhat (though perhaps not due to alleged limited quantities), but made an effort to console unfortunate customers by apologizing and offering a credit, which they didn’t have to do. Meanwhile, Aksys essentially tells people the situation is out of their hands. However, we hear of the bonus being offered in multiple waves and then sold in Aksys’ online store. They can try to patch it up by “selling the watches for a good cause,” but that’s beside the point. I have no interest in turning a blind eye to Aksys’ reeking of poor character. I won’t say I’ll NEVER buy another Aksys product new, because superstition would eventually make me a liar. However, suffice it to say I’m making every effort to minimize my monetary support of the company. I really don’t care what anyone else thinks of my position b/c it’s not going to change.

@bujinkanrn: Actually they did. As pointed out long ago, after wave 2, those who preordered earlier were given an exclusive link to change their preorder; first by canceling their current one and then re-ordering it. THAT is the 3d wave. This would have been all fine and dandy until one fool decided to leak this link out. I am sure if Aksys and Amazon could automatically upgrade the orders, they would have done so. But to think that they had to go through all this trouble because they think it’s fun to troll their loyal fans, right? I mean who doesn’t enjoy that? [/sarcasm] And why could Amazon offer credit and not Aksys? Because AMAZON was the one selling. Tell me. What could Aksys have done? Remember this is not like buying apples in the market. There is way more logistics and all involved. And do you seriously think that this decision was done solely by Amazon? Really? If you ordered yours from the Aksys store then that’s a different story.While Aksys did not go on their knees and cry for forgiveness, they did try to apologise. You make it seem as if Aksys just went kthxbai. But they did not. Just read again. This time without all that blind hatred and anger.

Look, I have met people who until now did not receive a notification email from Amazon when VLR was available. I was one of them. But none of us are in this much rage. Sure we are not all too happy with Amazon but do we go and spam their site and whine for over a month? Well, not that I know of. Just sayin’

@Texanon:
Yea I mentioned that to him at least 3 times already. He just refuses to accept the fact. While he claims to do this out of “principle”, it appears that he is still just butthurt that he could not get the watch despite being given not one but TWO chances already. At least that is what I got from his response. I mean, honestly, if it were to be out of “principle”, then an apology AND a discount should have sufficed. :

FML! My VLR watch broke( I got it when I pre ordered the game), I was walking down the stairs in school( I was gonna be late, so I was going pretty fast)and I thought I had it on tight enough, but it flew off my wrist and down the stairs. Aside from the screen cracks, the watched flashed through random times, shut off, and it won’t turn on again. *weeps*

It’s not so much butt-hurt as it is sadness that this one goofy item that would mean a lot to those who have played both games but never got a chance to get either watch (My first pre-order with Gamestop didn’t get their shipment in, and I didn’t know only Amazon was getting them the second time around).

@NikkiGrind
I agree that it’s disappointment and not “butt-hurt” as others rooting for Aksys are saying. It’s an f-ing watch, and apparently a cheap one at that. Most people on this site defend Aksys as if they went extraordinarily out of their way to see that everyone who pre-ordered VLR was taken care of. Instead, they pointed the finger at Amazon and said “We’re sorry.” The watch means jack crap, but Aksys’ handling of the situation left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

Stopping by to say my free watch came today!! Thank you so much for making things right by making them available to those who preordered! Next time PLEASE make a deluxe edition of your games!! I would gladly pay twenty bucks extra for bonus goodies, and generally expect to when companies put out games as amazing as you guys do. I know you’ve done this in the past with the BlazBlue series, and you definitely have the following to pull it off with 999.

I will say I never would have known about the offer if I hadnt been checking out the forums at the time — somehow I wasnt on the list of people who got the email, even though I met the eligibility requirements. The communication on this was not very good, and a post on this site in addition to the emails would’ve been the most appropriate line of action, even if it would have risked an overwhelming response because of the number of people who preordered by 9/17. But thank you for a quick response and for getting it out even sooner than quoted. This is exactly the response I was looking for from Aksys, and I appreciate it.

Picked up Hakuoki a few weeks ago, I’m looking forward to playing that as well. I’ve heard nothing but fantastic things from the friends who have played.

I’m also glad to see you guys were able to donate profits to Hurricane Sandy!

I wasnt much in the loop with Aksys as a company before this whole watch preorder issue, beyond having played a few of your games, but thank you for following through and doing what you have.

Wow, Aksys! You sure drive a hard bargain. VLR is just too awesome. In fact, it’s so good that I bought a new copy for Vita to go with my 3DS copy that I had bought used. Yeah, I was kinda ticked earlier about the watches, but the game is SOOOO great that I don’t have the heart to write Aksys off. I concede; you’ve won me back. Just keep those good games coming.

Wow, the graphics are even sharper on the Vita version of VLR. Plus, I fell victim to that damnable save bug on the 3DS version. That’s okay, though. The game’s a masterpiece. I do wish, however, that Aksys would offer the watches again in their online shop, perhaps in a less-limited fashion. I’d buy one of each color, as the Zero Escape series has quickly become one of my favorites.